


is it bright where you are, have the people changed

by therm0dynamics



Series: the city of angels [1]
Category: True Detective
Genre: Angst, Character Study, M/M, Power Dynamics, Sex for Favors, as always
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-27
Updated: 2015-07-27
Packaged: 2018-04-11 10:28:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,780
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4431773
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/therm0dynamics/pseuds/therm0dynamics
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Equal parts loathing and shame burn hot in his belly because he knows this is a bad idea. And he feels so fucking weak and he feels so fucking stupid, but like a junkie jonesing for another hit of the drug that’d fucked his life in the first place, he can’t make himself walk away.</p><p>(or, ray digging himself deeper into a bad situation)</p>
            </blockquote>





	is it bright where you are, have the people changed

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into 中文 available: [【翻译】is it bright where you are, have the people changed无恙 by therm0dynamics](https://archiveofourown.org/works/10349139) by [liangdeyu](https://archiveofourown.org/users/liangdeyu/pseuds/liangdeyu)



> listen okay i’m more than a little fascinated by these two and whatever fucked-up thing they have going on between them. set pre-series, shortly after the two of them meet, so imagine like mid-20s versions of both actors. title stolen from “the beginning is the end is the beginning” by the smashing pumpkins. one day i shall stop titling things after songs, but today is not that day.
> 
> warning for, basically like, scandalous activities? performed in exchange for favors?? also a lot of swearing??? i d k.

As he coasts his piece-of-shit car down Silver Lake’s wide boulevards, under flickering restaurant signs and sodium-vapor streetlamps, past desiccated palm trees and sun-blasted buildings glowing with light from deep within, Ray suddenly gets why Frank Semyon is so fucking dangerous.

And he doesn’t mean just as a menace to society in general. Ray doesn’t even have to be law enforcement to know that Semyon’s _objectively_ dangerous. Fuelled by the insatiable mad-dog gleam of hunger in his eyes and the determination to take the power and money and respect he’d been denied since birth, Semyon’s one of the most vicious wolves currently prowling Los Angeles’ underworld. And cunning, too. Charming. Diligent. Give him a decade, and who knows. He’d probably have half the state of California in his pocket.

No, he means how dangerous Semyon is to him, personally.

Because most people – like the ones drunkenly stumbling past in their high heels and ridiculous popped-collar shirts – someone hurts them or the ones they love, they keep faith in themselves and in the inherent rationality of the world around them. Blood and sweat and grief and fury, they get their justice. But after what happened to Alicia, Ray had severed his allegiances to the normal structures of societal operation. Gunned in his blind fury for retribution, not restitution. Went to Semyon for help instead.

And once he watched Semyon solve his difficult problem like it was the easiest thing in the world, with the drop of a name and the flash of a photograph as they sat together in a dive bar in South Central, that’s when he knew he was _fucked_.

He flicks his turn signal and navigates up a narrower, quieter residential street, mentally reciting the address to himself.

Because human beings were so fucking predictable and disastrous. Because who _wouldn’t_ always take the easy way out, if they knew that option was open. Because the seductive promise of making problems _disappear_ was worth the unimaginably steep and bloody price it commanded, was worth it again and again and again, was more addictive than any other substance on earth. 

Because it’d been, what, less than a _year_ since Semyon’s bent him, upstanding officer of the law that he never was, and every fucking day Ray swore to himself he’d never come to this man asking for help again, and here he was. Pulling his car to the curb of a house that he’d never be able to make rent on, not on his deputy’s salary. Walking up the driveway hunching his shoulders and scurrying in the shadows on the off chance that some passerby might catch a glimpse of his face. Knocking hesitantly on Semyon’s front door. It’s two a.m. Saturday morning and he hopes that the man won’t answer and really, really hopes that he will.

Equal parts loathing and shame burn hot in his belly because he _knows_ this is a bad idea. And he feels so fucking weak and he feels so fucking stupid, but like a junkie jonesing for another hit of the drug that’d fucked his life in the first place, he can’t make himself walk away.

He tries to convince himself that this isn’t who he is, that it’s desperation that drives him to this. But then again, he’s already long since lost his sense of who he is. Of _being_. He’s someone different day to day now. Fuck, he’s even someone different day and night. He’s whatever Semyon wants him to be – an attack dog to unleash, a blunt weapon to swing, a messenger, a fall guy, a soldier, a spy. At your service, lord and master. This is the price one pays for taking the easy way out. His life is not his own. 

He looks around furtively and knocks again, with a little more conviction this time. From inside, he hears an irate voice bellow, “I heard you the first time, asshole!”

Ray yelps and nearly falls backwards when the door bangs open not three seconds later. And there Semyon stands, scowling, fully awake, framed in the weak light flooding from the house, as dressed down as Ray’s ever seen him. Barefoot, in a worn t-shirt and sweatpants.

Doesn’t this man need sleep, Ray has time to wonder, and then Semyon swears and bodily yanks him into the house and slams the door hard behind him.

“Velcoro. Do you really think it’s _prudent_ , fucking showing up here this time of night?” he snarls by way of greeting, as they stand crowded together in the half-dark of the small foyer.

“I’ll climb your balcony next time, Juliet,” Ray mutters back, rubbing his arm and greatly resenting the fact that Semyon towers a full head over him and can throw him around with such ease. “Relax, nobody saw me.”

Semyon makes a low, angry noise in the back of his throat but he sticks his hands in his pockets and heads for the living room. Ray’s left to follow on his heels like a recalcitrant child. He knows, from the way Semyon’s swaggering about, that he’s got a gun stuck into his waistband.

In the living room, Semyon points to a wooden high-backed chair without a backwards glance. Ray bristles at being told where to sit and bites back an uncharitable comment by reminding himself what he’s here for. He sits instead, crosses his arms and watches Semyon detour to a tray table stocked with a nearly-empty decanter of whiskey and a few glasses. A drink for him. His host already has his own.

He’s never been to this house before. It’s undeniably expensive, but much bigger than it needs to be for one man living alone and devoid of any personal effects – high ceilings and big windows and that purposely minimalist kind of décor that makes the space feel cavernous. Kind of like he moved right into a random page from a high-end real-estate catalogue.

A good deal more than two fingers’ worth of whiskey is shoved in front of his face. He takes the glass and downs half of it in one go to maybe quiet down the turbulence coiling in his chest – that bit of drink alone would cost him half his paycheck, knowing Semyon’s taste. That thought makes him want to throw something. Maybe a punch. Semyon seats himself on a leather armchair facing him, draws his gun from under his shirt, and lays it on the side table next to his own drink. Not exactly a threat, but close.

“You’re supposed to savor that,” Semyon says, a look of disapproval on his face.

“ _Oops_.” He swigs the rest of it. The pleasant alcoholic warmth blossoming through his body fades very quickly into an unpleasant dizziness. He hasn’t eaten in the last twelve hours, since he started his shift, or slept in the last twenty-four. He’s a human fucking disaster. He knows. “You got more of this shit?” 

“Not for you. You already look like you’re gonna puke. Which, if you do, I’m gonna fucking _eviscerate_ you.” He lets that bit of Ivy League vocabulary sink in as Ray takes note of the fastidiously clean space around him. Fucking neat freak. “You wanna explain why you showed up here middle of the night looking like the living fucking dead?”

“Well, it’s not for the company,” Ray snaps, suddenly edgy, or maybe that’s because his heart rate kicks up thirty beats a minute and his stomach’s churning in a way that has nothing to do with the alcohol. He takes a deep breath, forces himself to settle down before he does something drastic, like grab for Semyon’s gun and shoot himself in the head. “Frank, I need money.”

Semyon stares at him blank-eyed like this is the stupidest fucking thing he’s ever heard. Which, to be fair, Ray thinks. It _is_ a stupid fucking idea.

“Do I look like a bank to you?”

“You kidding me? The way I’ve fucked up my life, they’re not going to give me a loan. And work pays jack shit. And after all the – you know – with Alicia – and I have a kid now, remember? A kid we weren’t expecting, yeah, but we made the choice to keep him and now I gotta provide. I just need something. Help me get back on my feet.”

He’s underselling it a little. Three months behind on rent, living on expired canned food, had their electricity shut off maybe three, four times in the past two weeks. Debt collectors and Child Protective Services all but breaking down their door. He hopes the desperation he feels under all that heavy burning resentment isn’t showing through.

“Allow me to rephrase, then. Do I look like a _charity_ to you?”

Then Ray fucking loses it.

“You think I _want_ to be here, asking for help from _you_ of all people? The fucking Devil already owns my soul, you think I want to come back for seconds? You think I _enjoy_ begging like some fucking vagrant so I can put food on the table?” And he’s practically screaming now and the more he says, the more the rage builds, a heavy oily lump at the back of his throat. He’s useless. So _fucking_ useless. He already owes Semyon one of the deepest blood debts one man can owe another, but _yes_ he wants to fucking come back for seconds because he knows this is a problem Semyon can solve, easy as breathing. “I spent three days convincing myself to stay the fuck away from you, but here I am ‘cause I’m _out of ideas_ , so either you fucking give me the money, or – ”

And suddenly Ray’s head hits the back of his chair hard because Semyon’s lunged up from his seat like a leaping tiger, barring one arm across Ray’s chest and clamping the other around his throat. Ray’s pinned down by the full weight of the man towering above him, but he knows better than to squirm. He goes completely, utterly still. Semyon leans in so his face is inches away from Ray’s, his breath hot, smelling like a mix of whiskey and mint.

“You keep mouthing off to me like this, _Raymond_ ,” Semyon murmurs, looking at him with half-closed eyes burning with electric fury, “and I’ll show you the fucking Devil. It would benefit you to remember that those who pull your strings can just as easily cut your throat.”

He presses in harder until Ray’s choking for breath, stars swerving and dancing in his vision, but then Semyon releases him and sits back down. 

“Alright. Yeah, sorry. I just – ” Ray stutters, then takes several deep, shaking breaths and tries to get his heart rate back under control. He locks eyes with Semyon. It’s like looking down the wrong end of a loaded gun. Terrifying. Disconcerting. But he says nothing, just sits there and stares long and hard and considering at Ray. Stares at Ray’s fingers when he adjusts his collar and then stares at his mouth as he licks his lips nervously.

“What happened to your face?” Semyon suddenly asks.

“What?” Ray says, and recoils when Semyon leans in close again.

“Shh, relax. I mean this,” he says, and curls his fingers around the side of Ray’s face and draws his thumb gently along Ray’s cheekbone, tracing the faint scab of a recent cut. His touch is searing. He pulls his hand away, but the feeling lingers like the crackling of static.

“Uh. Guy swung at me during an arrest a week ago. Cut me with his ring,” Rays says dumbly. And for some reason now he’s suddenly and acutely hyperaware of his own bodily presence in the room, of how heavily the blood rushes through his veins, of the sweat trickling down his neck, of the flush he feels that has nothing to do with the alcohol in his system.

“Badly?”

“I’ve had much worse, thank you for your concern.” He feels like this night’s taken an abrupt turn. Somehow. Somewhere. And now he’s completely lost.

“Don’t flatter yourself,” Semyon says, settling back comfortably into his chair. “I just don’t like it,” he says, taking a drink from his mostly-full glass, “when people fuck with my things.”

Ray draws a sharp, heavy breath and casts his eyes to the ceiling. Something hot and slick settles in the pit of his stomach. The sickening shame and anger from before, magnified a hundredfold. But under it, just barely banked, something headier, darker, dirtier. He really, _really_ doesn’t want to put a name to it.

“Yes or no, Semyon,” he says, clenching his fists by his sides. Suddenly all he wants to do is move, he’s burning up inside with the desire to fight, flee, _something_. But the atmosphere in this room is thin as gossamer. Move, break something, and it all comes crashing down.

“I don’t have cash for you now,” Semyon says. “It’s all tied up in property right now. A new club I just acquired. The Lux Infinitum.”

“Sounds fucking pretentious,” Ray mutters. His heart feels like lead.

“But,” he says, and Ray looks up again, “there’s more than one way to solve a problem. I can get you your money in a week. Can you wait that long?”

“Oh. Uh.” He quickly calculates what money he has left to scrape together, and if it’s enough to hold them over for just one more week. It’s enough. It’s _enough_. “Yeah, a week – we can do that.” And all of a sudden, on the next breath he lets out, it’s like a vice unclamping from his ribcage, like liquid sunshine shooting through his veins, like he’s a drowning man breaking the ocean’s surface. His hands are shaking and he feels lightheaded. If he wasn’t drunk before, he is now.

Junkie, meet your fix.

“But this won’t be a something for nothing deal. That’s not how I operate.”

“You already know what I’ve got to offer,” Ray replies, the adrenalin rush spiking into a pricklier and more wary feeling.

“I know, but do _you?_ ” Semyon asks. Ray can do nothing but stare, partly in confusion and partly in dawning realization at how this meeting is most likely going to end. “There’s more than one way to pay your debts as well.”

And he leans back in his chair and spreads his legs, a liquid smirk on his face.

And strangely enough, though the words hang like a miasma, Ray doesn’t feel _violated_ by the insinuation. Because he knows this isn’t just about sex. If Semyon wanted someone to get him off, he could’ve done _so_ much better than the desperate and angry young deputy sheriff sitting before him. No. This is Semyon making damn certain that everything – everything – Ray has is his to take. Ray’s not quite suicidal enough to want Semyon to think otherwise. At your service, lord and master. This is about power.

Or _maybe_ –

 _Maybe_ it’s even simpler than that – Ray chances a glance around the cavernous house surrounding them, a space so empty and cold every word louder than a whisper seems to echo. He pictures Semyon living here, alone, surrounded by meticulously white walls and clinically white floors. Always looking over his shoulder at the big fucking target nailed to his back for all the Los Angeles underground to take aim at, as he sits uneasy on his throne atop the bodies he’s buried. Answering the door with a loaded gun. Hunched over in his chair at two in the morning, eyes ringed with shadows. Wide awake and drinking away that same hollowness that Ray knows Semyon carries around inside him, ‘cause he carries it too.

Looks like we both got exactly the lives we deserve, Ray thinks bitterly. See you in hell, he thinks, and drops to his knees.

Somewhere ten or so years down the line, when he’s working the most fucked-up murder case in his career, one that involves high-speed railroads and crow-masked gunmen and an entire mansion full of sex toys, a hard-eyed knife-nut county detective is going to ask him exactly how _compromised_ he is with regards to Frank Semyon. And Ray will pause for a long time to laugh inwardly and remember this moment, the first time he’d knelt between the man’s legs with his dick down his throat. And then he’ll walk away without answering because she’ll never believe him when he tries to explain that yes, it might’ve been the first time, but it sure as fuck wasn’t the last.

But for now, he’s here on the floor before Semyon, sucking him off. From the way he feels Semyon trembling uncontrollably, trying to keep a hold on his self-control, Ray knows it’s almost over.

Between the bitter churning of his stomach and the resentment now flickering into sharp-edged hatred – at Semyon, at the world around him, but mostly at himself for getting himself into this situation – Ray almost laughs. You work the call girls and rent boys beat five years running, you listen and play along when they chat you up and tell you you’re too pretty to be a cop, you learn a few things. Maybe even try a few things for yourself.

“The _fuck_ are you so happy about,” Semyon hisses unsteadily, apparently sensing his mirth. Ray stops for a second, slowly drags his mouth up and off Semyon's dick with a nasty shit-eating grin, and becomes likely the first person in history to witness Frank Semyon, breath ragged, heart pounding, eyes dark and wild as midnight fog, _squirm_ in his chair with frustrated want. Joke’s on him, though Ray can't admit the sight doesn’t send an incandescent thrill crackling down his spine.

“This,” Ray says, and goes right back down with a vicious twist of his tongue, and whatever smarmy fucking thing Semyon was about to say cuts off with an audible choke. He does it again, and now Semyon’s tugging urgently at Ray’s hair, which Ray really hates, ‘cause he’s not some _chick_ who gets off on having his hair pulled. But then he realizes it’s a warning – rather considerate of him, really – and he pulls off and finishes Semyon with his hand.

“Jesus _fuck_ – ” Semyon spits out, and comes all over his shirt with a low, almost pained moan.

“You make all your associates do this for you?” Ray asks, wasting no time standing and backing away. “Like that redhead lackey of yours. The one looks like a weasel. What’s his name. Blake.”

“Fuck you,” Semyon growls, probably more a reflex reaction than real sentiment. He still looks a bit too dazed to be forming coherent thoughts. “What’d I say about watching your mouth?”

“You seemed like you were enjoying it,” Ray snipes back, and heads off to the bathroom. He jerks off into the toilet, washes his face and runs a hand through his hair. He just wants something to burn the taste of come out of his mouth – looks around for mouthwash, but finds none. Maybe whiskey, then.

He reemerges into the living room to see Semyon’s put his pants back on and stripped of his shirt and has resumed his usual smirking over his drink of choice like nothing ever happened. Ray looks at the whiskey, decides he really probably _would_ throw up if he had any more, then fishes a forgotten packet of cigarettes out of his jacket pocket.

“Don’t you _dare_ smoke in here,” Semyon growls, but after seeing the man practically crawling out of his skin wanting Ray’s mouth back on him so badly, Ray was inclined to be a little less afraid. He flicks his lighter and lights up. Semyon’s eyes go immediately to his mouth as he takes a long drag of his cigarette. Ray could laugh.

“How are you gonna get me the money?” he says instead, because he may be certifiable, but he’s still not suicidal.

“Do I strike you, somehow, as an untrustworthy man?” And Ray has to shake his head, no. Semyon has to be one of the most earnest people he’s ever met, though most people get close enough to see that, they’re already marked for death. “Then trust me. You’ll _get_ your money.”

As Ray drives back through the streets of Silver Lake, still neon-bright at three in the morning, he looks in his rearview mirror. He feels his bruised lips and aching jaw and knows his knees will probably hurt for days. A small price to pay for what he needed, he supposes, and is reminded again: this is why Semyon is so dangerous.

And suddenly he feels deeply, deeply humiliated. Not because of what he did – the act itself doesn’t disgust him – but it’s the certain knowledge that the next time a problem comes up, he’d do this all again in a heartbeat, maybe do even more, to get what he needs. His life is not his own. It belongs to Frank Semyon. 

\--

A week later, with little explanation beyond some vague hand-waving from his superiors, Ray gets promoted from deputy to detective and shunted over to Vinci Police Department. He reads the official notice once, twice, absorbs nothing. Reads it again.

_Attn: Deputy Sheriff Raymond Velcoro …_

The job comes with department-provided housing, the letter says, and mentally Ray bids fucking farewell to his crazy drunkard landlord threatening to evict him and report his kid to CPS every other day and to his crackhead neighbors and their methhead friends. The pay raise, too, he quickly calculates, is enough to support the three of them, even if Alicia’s not working. The sign-on bonus alone is enough to solve their short-term financial difficulties. And, the letter concludes, this job comes with a good potential for future opportunities. Provided, of course, he works hard and keeps himself out of trouble.

 _Fuck_. Fuck, fuck, fuck, goddamnit _fuck_ he thinks as he cruises through the middle of a burnt-out industrial wasteland. Vinci couldn’t be more fucked if someone nuked it from space. Might actually improve the landscape a little.

He’s got a new brass-bright Vinci PD badge fixed to his belt. Gun in his holster. Murder in his heart. He considers calling Semyon or paying him another, less friendly midnight visit, but what was he going to do? He’d just sound utterly ungrateful. This is what he wanted. Wasn’t it?

And all of a sudden, the city strikes him as ephemeral and unreal. A figment of his imagination, a wild orgy of concrete and steel beams, overlaid with plasticine and delusions, bleached and faded under the relentless desert sun. He can’t escape. The war’s been lost a long time ago. He’s not _going_ to hell. He’s already arrived.

Fucking hell of a fix.

Fucking hell of a comedown.

**Author's Note:**

> this was my first time ever writing anything remotely smutty so please tell me how THAT went. i’m just. yeah. usual apologies for pretention, en-dashes, and general lack of knowledge about los angeles. i don't know why i dragged the neighborhood of silver lake into this mess. sorry guys.
> 
> anyway, hope you enjoyed, let me know what you think!


End file.
